A LONG TIME COMING

At the southern end of Homebush Bay (home of Sydney Olympic Park), lies the small town of Homebush, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. Homebush boasts of its schools of high academic achievement and its hosting of the World Youth Day 2008. Homebush, however, has a reputation as one of the most polluted areas in Australia. Decades of manufacturing chemicals such as Xanthates, Chlorobenzenes, and the insecticide DDT have greatly degraded the natural habitat of the area. In the town's heyday, it was home to over forty slaughterhouses and animal by-product treatment buildings. To round out the notoriety of this location, in the early part of the last century it was home to an insane asylum and a venereal disease treatment facility. It was during that time that the young married couple, Phyllis and Tom Turner called Homebush home...

Surely the young bride Phyllis must have had high hopes for the future. She might have even seen her marriage to Tom as a second chance at life. She was only 12 years old when her father left the family, and young Phyllis, determined to do her part, quit school to help her mother care for her siblings. Such a humble beginning is certainly worthy of a valiant rescue by a handsome prince. But Prince Tom had no riches with which to lavish his beloved, Princess Phyllis. Nonetheless, they began their lives in the hamlet known as Homebush, a name which brought about visions of dismembered pigs, beheaded cows, maniacal women, blind men, and conditions not discussed in polite company.

I wonder if Phyllis ever found herself feeling like Job? I know I have. I have oftentimes looked at my life and felt that I was dealt an unfair hand, sowing seeds of faithfulness but reaping a harvest of thorns and weeds. When suffering came my way, I did what Job did. I took a moral inventory of my life and declared myself innocent. And like He did with Job, God showed up.

Juri Ammari, pastor of Metro Alliance Church, says that when God shows up in the midst of our suffering:
He grapples our glory (Job 38-39)
He pummels our pride (Job 40)
He wrestles us into repentance (Job 41:-42:6)

God allowed suffering into Job's life because he was blameless, upright, feared God, and shunned evil. I wish I could say that this was the case with me. More likely, He allowed suffering into my life to transform me into one who could be blameless, upright, fearing God and shunning evil. What I've come to realize is that through the suffering, God was dismantling the life that I had created for myself so He could give me the perfect life that He has for me. It has been a painful process but a necessary one in order for Him to answer a prayer I prayed over twenty years ago.

I don't know Phyllis Turner personally but I do know that God has been with her throughout her entire life. And way back in the 1920s when Phyllis dropped out of elementary school, God knew that in 2007, at the age of 94, she would become the oldest person in the world to ever earn a Masters degree.

Dear God, I thank You for having a very long memory and for keeping Your promises for decades, centuries, and even generations. I thank You for caring enough about me to grapple my glory, to pummel my pride, and to wrestle me into repentance. Give me the courage and the faith to keep going even when I cannot see you working on my behalf. I ask this in Jesus' Name. Amen.

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